"We saw turnout triple I think from Suffolk to up to Syracuse. We are seeing Democrats turn out in record numbers," Democratic consultant Monica Klein said. "So I think it will be very difficult for Republicans to raise that much money, or even to succeed."

As of the latest campaign filing this week, Cuomo had $9.2 million of campaign cash on hand, while Molinaro had $210,835. By comparison, Republican Rob Astorino had $1.2 million at this point four years ago when he ran against Cuomo.

Molinaro has struggled right out of the gate. First, he said he wouldn't run last winter before he turned around and said he would. Then, Cuomo faced a primary from Cynthia Nixon, which put Molinaro largely on the sidelines.

"This is really an unanticipated consequence of the Cuomo-Nixon primary, which just sucked all the air and all the attention away from Marc Molinaro," Republican consultant Jon Greenspun said. "In some ways, he is getting what has to be the latest start of any top-of-the-ticket Republican in history because there just wasn't any attention until the day after the primary."

Some Republicans are holding out hope that an independent expenditure group could draw wealthy Republican donors to spend on Molinaro's behalf.

But with a month until Election Day, time is running out: "An independent expenditure would be highly unlikely because I think most of those resources would go to trying to keep the [state] Senate in Republican hands," Greenspun said.

The GOP seems to be refocusing its attention on individual state Senate races. Republicans hold a narrow one seat majority, and Democrats are hopeful anti-Donald Trump sentiment across the state will lead to them flipping at least two seats and gaining the majority.